Success and failure are highly subjective. If success means carte blanche for the members of the EU's élite to do whatever they like, in future, at the expense of the EU's formerly sovereign electorates, then, yes, they have succeeded. Don't let those minor squabbles between the institutions fool you! The EU-imperium has been launched and is stealthily building up steam.

However, from my point of view also, the Lisbon Treaty is a success, because it has demonstrated, more clearly than ever, that the EU's élite despises democracy and suffers from an incurable addiction to power. Some of the EU's most loyal supporters were appalled at the way it was introduced, if not (as they should also have been) by its content.

From every other point of view, the Lisbon Treaty is the worst failure - of political accountability, judicial process, constitutional propriety and governmental honesty - which I have ever had the misfortune to witness.

On the 'democratic deficit' of the EUnion:

Elections must be made meaningful, if we are to avoid being trapped in a kind of neo-feudal tyranny. This means unseating the pro-EU parties, which are indirectly funded with tax-payers money, and protected by the media (state and private) which are also in the EU's pocket. The extent of the EU's bribery of professional associations, trade unions, academic institutions, churches, charities and pressure groups, is staggering and must be exposed. The EU can then be kicked out of country after country, until we are able to establish a free association of sovereign, democratic electorates. I see no other way of escaping the horrible fate which the EU has designed for us.